Breakdown of Tarkistimme lukumäärän skannaamalla viivakoodit, paitsi että yksi erä puuttuu.
yksi
one
että
that (conjunction)
tarkistaa
to check
puuttua
to be missing
paitsi
except (for), besides
lukumäärä
quantity
skannata
to scan
viivakoodi
barcode
erä
batch
Questions & Answers about Tarkistimme lukumäärän skannaamalla viivakoodit, paitsi että yksi erä puuttuu.
Why do we use paitsi että here instead of just paitsi?
paitsi että ("except that") is used to introduce a full subordinate clause with its own subject and verb (yksi erä puuttuu). If you were just excepting a noun phrase (like "except one batch"), you would use paitsi followed by the partitive case, such as paitsi yhtä erää.
Why is viivakoodit (the barcodes) in the nominative plural rather than the partitive case?
It acts as the object of the action skannaamalla ("by scanning"). Because the scanning was a completed action covering the entire group of barcodes, it requires a total object. Plural total objects take the nominative plural ending -t.
skannaamalla translates to "by scanning". Could we use the second infinitive skannaten instead?
Yes, skannaten (the second infinitive in the instructive case) also means "by scanning." The third infinitive in the adessive case (-malla / -mällä) is very common for expressing the method or means of doing something. In modern Finnish, the two forms are largely interchangeable in this context, though -malla often feels slightly more concrete.
Doesn't the verb puuttua (to be missing) usually require a location in the elative case (-sta / -stä)?
It often does! When you want to say exactly where something is missing from, you use the elative, such as Tästä puuttuu yksi erä ("One batch is missing from this"). However, if the context makes the location obvious, the location phrase can simply be left out.
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